


don't wake me up again, don't patch me up

by Gemini_Baby



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne-centric, Gen, Hurt Damian Wayne, Hurt No Comfort, Self-Hatred, They all need hugs, Whump, YeetDC2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25379629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemini_Baby/pseuds/Gemini_Baby
Summary: He can feel his body being cradled. Jason holds him close to his chest and his voice is so so far away but still, Damian does not miss the soft tone and low volume that Todd usually reserves for when he tries to comfort his brothers after nightmares and believes that they will never remember him doing that in the morning or when the panic settles. Seeing that Todd is using it now means that he hopes that Damian’s pain would stop and he would return, that the dust would settle and his brother would be once again with them. Smiling, or scowling, whatever he prefers. He realizes that Jason is clinging to hope, hope that Damian would survive. It is foolish. It is painful. It puts a little smile on Damian’s face.Or: In which Dick is brainwashed and jokerized, Jason is panicking, Tim is chilling, and Damian is torturedJust another day in Gotham
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Comments: 35
Kudos: 294





	don't wake me up again, don't patch me up

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Before you all start reading, I want to tell you that this is very different from my usual stuff. So if you came here for something like my previous fics, this is not like that. If anything in it makes you feel uncomfortable, don't continue reading it. Always take care of yourself first.
> 
> (This has mostly canon-compliant stuff except the teen titans run by Adam Glass. Because in this house, we YEET THAT RACIST PIECE OF GARBAGE CALLED A COMIC)
> 
> I wrote it for some catharsis.
> 
> Many thanks to amazing Shell who helped with the fic

Damian is swinging from rooftop to rooftop. Stopping the crimes here and there. There have only been one mugging and two scuffles. By Gotham City’s standards, today is a quiet night so far.

  
  


He is firing the grapple and thinks about being alone and alienated. His best friend is aged up now and lives in the 31st century. Time and space apart from him. Jon had taken Damian with him too, once. Only for Damian to get mind-wiped by Jon’s new teammates. He only knows because he had made notes in his diaries, back on earth, before going and had some notes and files recorded on the gauntlet computer. His eldest brother no longer remembers him. His father is heartbroken over the cancelled wedding and losing Alfred. His second eldest brother is estranged and has a more strained relationship with their family now. His third eldest brother is on an adventure with his friends somewhere far away. Good for him, Damian thinks. His own grandfather figure died because of him. Because of Damian. Because Damian can’t do any task, any job, properly. He messes everything up. Missions. Bonds. Relationships. Why is he even still surprised?

They blame him for Bane breaking the neck of Pennyworth. Damian does not make any effort to refute them. Because where is the lie though?

The scene of Bane breaking his grandfather figure’s neck in front of his eyes keeps repeating in his head. The sound of the crack of a neck being broken still echoing in his ears.

It is all fine. He has it better than the others though, doesn’t he? Richard is left behind by almost all family members. Jason is never understood and blamed for having a different set of morals. He does not have the room to talk. Others have it worse than him.

Damian is just being an ungrateful brat.

* * *

  
  


He is taking a break for a few minutes as he sits on the edge of a rooftop, feet dangling from it. 

  
  


He thinks how much better would they have been had Damian not come into their life, had he not forced his way.

Any and every universe and possibility or scenario he thinks, where he is not present is so beautiful, happy and untainted. 

Any scenario he can imagine where he is even slightly present, even to the barest amount, is ruined, unhappy and gloomy, tainted because of him. 

* * *

_Richard who is happy and has a kid. His_ **_own kid_ ** _. The one he actually wanted. The one Richard actually signed up for. And he loves him so much and the presence of the baby alone makes him look happier and younger. Unlike Damian, whose responsibility was thrust upon him and whose mere presence would result in Dick feeling gloomy and looking way older._

* * *

_Tim and Richard have a nice relationship, easy smiles and cherished company of each other, just the way they had it before. Before Damian came and ruined everything. Not the strained and frayed relationship like they have now, not the uncomfortable glances at each other’s direction, not the taunts and double edged swords, not the grovelling. Just them being happy and content._

* * *

_Jason who is back in the family. Jason who was never forced to relive through his trauma._

* * *

_Timothy smiles more and hangs around the manor more. And it gets Father to smile more._

* * *

_Father did not die and Richard was never forced to don the cowl, never forced to be something what he never wanted to be. Richard has no more stress on his shoulders._

_Gotham is more peaceful and the patrol is filled with the friendly banters between Richard, Tim, Stephanie and Barbara._

* * *

One thing appears as clear as day that Damian exists on others’ suffering and is happy while others pay the price.

He just wants to cease existing and being happy at the expense of others. 

* * *

He should have just let Grandfather take control of his body. 

He should have died when Jason shot him in the heart.

He should have just died when Flamingo emptied his ammo into his spine.

He should have died when Mother blew up the boat.

He should not have returned after he died by being impaled / speared on heretic’s sword.

He should have never been resurrected the countless times he died while he was growing up and training.

Or maybe he should have just died of shame the evening Alfred told him that Damian has the ideologies of Ra’s Al Ghul and said that he is disappointed in Damian.

* * *

Overall, tonight is a peaceful and quiet night. The classic and prime example of the calm before the storm. Or maybe they have become so used to the storms that the quiet and the calm feels like something bad. Something unusual.

Calm nights should be relaxing. They should put one at ease. But tonight, it all just rubbed the wrong way. 

Maybe Damian is just a paranoid spawn of Satan as Timothy in Damian’s nightmares and hallucinations likes to say he is. Maybe Timothy is right. That Damian is so full of bad things that he is reluctant to accept nice things.

He tries to take deep breaths and tries to calm himself down. He has been feeling sensitive - oversensitive, this whole week. His mind would come up with entirely false things like it did now with Timothy throwing insults at him. Or he would remember the littlest things or remarks from the past and his brain would make those small issues something large enough to hurt him. He doesn't understand why his brain is doing it . In his heart, he knew his brain was twisting those thoughts into mountains. So these things were not the ones actually hurting him. Or not that much. The ones which were hurting him _a lot_ were things like Richard's incidents and Jason's estrangement. 

He does _not_ blame his brothers. He will never blame them. He is not an adult. He is a child. And he's well aware that he is mocked to be an eighty years old man in a child's body. But him not being an adult does not mean that he is immature. Childish does not equate to immaturity. Maturity does not automatically mean Adult. Because had being an adult meant mature, none of them would have ever blamed Jason, Stephanie or Richard. Had adult meant maturity, they would have never victim-blamed his siblings and his friend. 

He does not blame Richard wanting nothing to do with their family. He will not blame him if Richard doesn't want anything to do with them in the future. He can not and will not blame Jason for being uncomfortable around him and Richard. Richard put him in Arkham next to the cell of Joker. Damian became the cause of his brother being forced to return to the place where he died and relive his trauma. 

He will never blame them. _Never Ever._ The only person he has to blame is _he, himself._

Maybe he is not really looking forward to the day that Richard gets his memories back and has the agency and walks away. Leaving them behind. _Leaving him behind._

Do father figures get tired of thrust upon kids? That's one of the few questions Damian Wayne does not know the answer to. And he is not looking forward to the day he actually finds the answer. 

He will crumble that day.

Right now, he is just like a huge pile of rocks and sand in a pot. The pot working as a mould. The day the pot is taken away, all the rocks will fall and crumble to dust and sand will scatter. 

He is exhausted and wants to stop for a moment and just catch his breath. But catching breath means reminding himself that he is alive, that he lives while Alfred is dead, Richard is out of there somewhere and Jason is just a dead man walking. 

* * *

There is sound coming from the alleyway and things look fishy from where he sits on the edge of the rooftop and directly above the scene.

The colours and print of clothing catch his eyes. He sees a custom hoodie, the one he designed and had custom printed for Richard. He had gifted it to him on his birthday and would know it anywhere.

The long hair, the hoodie and black jeans pants, the ones which are Grayson’s favourite combined with groans of extreme pain, have Damian jumping down.

* * *

He does not understand what is happening until it is too late. The sighting of his eldest brother in an alleyway was a trap. He tells himself that he could not have known about the possibility of it being a trap. Who is he trying to fool though? Himself? Even fully knowing that this was a trap, Damian would have still jumped down and flipped to wrap his arms around him, to embrace his brother. Or maybe he would have looked at him from a distance. No hugging maybe because Richard does not currently like it. 

He is soon overpowered, much to his shame because his head was not in the game. 

That is one of the biggest conflicts in his life. The constant battle between his head and his heart. He has been raised to use his head, has been trained to follow what his brain says and has been forced to build walls around his heart. But Damian prefers to follow his heart. Whenever he lets the walls down and follows what his heart says, he gets hurt and the urge to never listen to it gets stronger and stronger. 

The ironic and funny thing is that when he follows his brain and saves himself from the heartache, he ends up hurting others. When he follows his heart, he gets hurt and ends up with even more shards of his heart than before. 

Maybe Damian should never have had his thorns. Not having thorns himself would have meant not blooming. And him not blooming would have saved everyone from getting cut on the edges of his thorns. 

  
  
  
  
He knows that Richard is brainwashed and being controlled by the madman. One look at him and he can tell. It takes one to know one. 

  
  
  


He tries to transmit the emergency signal from his beacon. It is of no use. 

His broken fingers repeatedly try to tap the communicator despite the pain which flows through his body with the slightest movements.

Any member of their so-called batfamily is not going to come and help him. They have him blocked from their contacts. 

  
  


He knows their stance and respects their honesty. He would take an extremely bitter drink, which he explicitly knows would kill him one day, over the overly sweetened, and deceivingly pretty coloured drink, which deceives with its looks , and will kill him slowly.

  
  
  
  
  


If they call Todd the black sheep of the family, Damian is currently the slaughtered sheep. 

Blocked out of the communication links by most family members

It is impossible for him to contact and reach anyone for back up. No one is going to come and save the bad and rogue Robin. 

* * *

It turns out Damian was not the only one to be captured. Todd is tied and lies beaten, bloody and broken to Damian’s far left. It seems that they have been almost done with Jason before Damian was brought here and he regained some semblance of consciousness.

Todd is panicking if his breathing is any indication. He is...hyperventilating. There is a crowbar covered with a lot of blood lying in a puddle of red which suspiciously looks like Todd’s blood and he might be bleeding out.

Damian wants to throw up.

* * *

Grayson, no, Richard stands behind the Joker. Punchline has her hands on his waist ...or maybe lower. It is hard to tell from where Damian is tied up.

He wants to break her hand.

Bruises litter his entire body and peak through his clothing. Their _Big bird,_ their _Blue bird_ is literally coloured black and blue with bruises. 

He stands with a stretched, strained and forced smile. His face gives away the stress. 

_Dick Grayson is not performing tonight. He is being exhibitioned._

  
  


There are a lot of henchmen here. All of them having strategic positions. Joker went all out tonight. Tonight? Today? Damian has lost any track of time 

  
  
  


His head is spinning a lot and his heart...is broken. Not for the first time. Not for the last.

Many things he can’t grasp in his surroundings. They feel like slipping. What is there and not? He is not sure.

One thing Damian noticed though was that they did not tie him properly. Either they are too confident with whatever they have used and have in stock or they are underestimating the ability of the _“bloodthirsty and murderous Robin”._

Lucky for him. Unfortunate for them.

  
  


He will get out of it as soon as he gets the chance. He has to time his escape though, because rushing it can result in worse things.

* * *

Grayson is standing on the side with escrima sticks in both his hands.

“Dick, darling, why don’t you start the party?”

The question, which sends creeped out shudders in Damian’s spine, is answered by two amused and excited laughs.

  
  


Richard twirls the escrima sticks in his hand and starts his way towards Damian.

Some part of Damian childishly believes that Richard would turn around the last second and point it at the Joker’s direction teaching the garbage and smudge on the name of clowns his place

Richard points the sticks in Damian's direction and turns on the switch and Soon, his body jolts with pain and shock caused by the electricity. The process continues. On, off. On, off. His escrima sticks are fully charged and Dick does not look like he is going to finish it. He looks like...as if this is just getting started.

  
  
  


It should hurt him a lot and it does. But Richard inflicting it hurts worse than the current itself. Damian knows how to handle the current. He was trained for this. He was trained and tortured to build immunity to it. Electric current is not his enemy. It is his old recurring friend. The friend that causes him panic attacks more often than not. The friend which has caused him pain that is so familiar now.

  
  


It is the face and the being of his torturer that hurts him deeply. The torturer is the one who he considers his father figure. That is something he was never trained for in the league.

  
  
  


The pain does not stop though. Current. On. Off. On. Off. On. off. 

  
  
  


The worst part is that Joker calls Dick his family.

_Should have killed him with the crowbar when I still had the chance and killing tendencies._

* * *

Damian has been forced to inhale a gas in a large amount.

It is like fear gas trying to make him remember his fears and joker gas which is trying to make his cries and sobs come out like laughs.

He might have been forced to overdose on this fear gas and joker gas, it seems.

* * *

Damian can hear the silent sobs and the panicked breaths of Todd who is on his left side and Richard grinning and smiling but everything about him screams agony. It hurts. So bad.

The too many cuts or the digging of the chains and ropes does not hurt him. He can see that Jason, on his right side, is going through a silent panic attack. This is all too real, too brutal. His brother has already died from it, and has lived through it. He deserves a break. He deserves the pain to stop. He deserves that his tormentor does not add vinegar and acid to his injuries. Because adding salt is an understatement.

Behind Joker stands his brother and father figure. There are so many things he would have loved to tell his siblings. He never thought of saying goodbye again, so soon. Damian Wayne likes to think of himself as a realist. He should have seen this coming. 

He has sacrificed himself for Richard before. He won’t hesitate to do that again either. He knows he is bad with words and his actions…. He loves to show by his actions, although they get misinterpreted more often than not. While he usually has good intentions, him trying to do good doesn’t translate into that. He messes up. Badly. A lot. Good intentions are said to be just intentions. Nothing else. They can hurt but can’t help. And he is not sure where he stands.

They say when a person’s heart line goes straight, that’s the first and only time people declare love for that person and mourn them. He can’t say that for himself. He was regretted from the day his line got movement. When it turns a straight line, it should be a moment of joy. Of celebration. Damian doesn’t want them to mourn him. To miss him. He wants no tears in Richard’s eyes or no regrets in Timothy’s….if he shows up there. He doesn’t want them to feel bound.

They say people think about happy things before dying...Damian thinks about his family being happy and complete after him dying and no longer in the picture. It’s ironic. It’s selfish. It’s beautiful. He does not want his father to hurt himself over Damian’s useless self. He does not want Father to pull what he did before. He will never forgive himself if he ever again became the reason for his brother being triggered, on purpose, so that Damian could be resurrected.

He hopes they would respect his last wish, saved in a document they would have the access to the moment his heart flatlines.

He does not want to breathe anymore on other’s suffering. He does not want the smiles in exchange for his family’s tears. He does not want to grin when his brothers sob.

  
  
  


He does not regret killing. The only thing he regrets is killing innocents.

He does not have to be inebriated on the overdose of fear gas and joker gas combo to know that he won’t regret this.

He is never going to regret this, he thinks, while he gets the hold of the crowbar the joker was hitting his brother with. He got the hold of it and snatched it from those unnaturally pale hands. He is aware of the rapid breathing of the fog from the fear gas around his eyes but he does not hallucinate, because he doesn’t have to when one of the things he fears the most; his brothers getting brutally hurt and dying, was happening in reality, right before his eyes. He starts hitting the clown with the crowbar. That’s the only weapon he could get his hands on, could snatch.

He has been fighting against bigger and larger opponents since he was little. It is more about strategy than strength at these times. He knows how to make the impact with the slightest looking hit, and he does.

The laughs go higher and higher and the sounds of sobs lighter and fainter. _Higher and higher. Lighter and fainter. Higher and higher. Lighter and fainter. Cackles echoing loudly. Sobs quieted down._

The loud cackling stops. 

It's over. 

The worst is over. 

The many of the henchmen and the associates of Joker spring into action but neither of them are in any condition to face them, to fight anymore.

  
  


There are too many of them and Damian’s defence is low. He still tries.

* * *

Having high pain tolerance sucks. You never know how much your body is already hurt, or worse, hurt beyond the point of being saved or patched up, before you begin to _feel_ it. 

  
  


His chest feels tightened more and more, throat constricted. 

  
  


He doesn’t know if it is because of the beating, or because of the constant electric shocks or everything combined but the chip in his spine suddenly stops working.

He feels it and his tears cannot stop falling.

He does not have any control of anything in his life anymore. Not of his life. Not of the events and now, no control over his body.he thinks about the little control he had for a brief time. 

He is not able to move anymore. His legs don't work any longer. Damian is bitterly reminded of the fact how his lower body is actually paralyzed and it was the chip that had him operating for all three years.

Soon, it becomes difficult and then impossible to inhale. And when he can’t inhale, he can’t exhale either. It has become a difficult process. He tries. While he already knows it is fruitless. 

Most of his body has burn marks, some of the bones are broken and his broken fingers hurt even more.

There should be a panic. Of course, there is a panic: an automatic body reaction. But in his heart, he feels satisfied. Content. In a long time. Maybe for the first time. In forever.

  
  


He falls with a thud. He doesn’t grasp fully what happens next.

There is a blur of purple, red and black. There is the noise of gunshots and he distantly remembers that there is another member in their family who has black and red aesthetic and also uses guns. Aunt Kate is killing those pesky henchmen and they are untying Todd and rushing to get him medical help.

He can’t hear any outside noise but inside his head, there is a lot of echoing of sounds. It is a paradox. He knows what comes next. This is not his first time. Nor second. Death is no stranger in his household and dying repeatedly runs in the Al Ghul family after all.

* * *

He can feel his body being cradled. Jason holds him close to his chest and his voice is so so far away but still, Damian does not miss the soft tone and low volume that Todd usually reserves for when he tries to comfort his brothers after nightmares and believes that they will never remember him doing that in the morning or when the panic settles. Seeing that Todd is using it now means that he hopes that Damian’s pain would stop and he would return, that the dust would settle and his brother would be once again with them. Smiling, or scowling, whatever he prefers. He realizes that Jason is clinging to hope, hope that Damian would survive. It is foolish. It is painful. It puts a little smile on Damian’s face.

Damian can’t even hug his brother back. He can’t move his legs and curl up against his siblings when he finally falls asleep. His legs do not work anymore. His back is on fire. His chest has too many burn marks. While his throat and voice have betrayed him long ago.

There are golden locks flying above his face because of the position of a pedestrian fan, rushed and hushed voices, a mixture of laughs and sobs, both oh so painful, combined.

He hopes they would be happy. And that they will try to remain alive.

After all, Damian can’t always return from hell.

His eyes close and darkness engulfs him.

**Author's Note:**

> How is this catharsis Gem, you say?
> 
> Listen,,, his presence and him being alive in comics right now is hurting so many people, especially POCs.
> 
> They reintroduced his middle eastern heritage in teen titans special and some issues later, in Teen Titans Annual 1, depicted him wearing a suicide bomb and a suicide vest.
> 
> The day they started the story path with the prison thing, he is being coloured darker
> 
> In Legion of Super Heroes issue 3, he has been called baby Hitler.
> 
> In Teen titans annual 2, which was pushed to August, might be a repeat of RHATO #25, but with Bruce and Damian.
> 
> They have made Damian a killer again in Teen titans comics.
> 
> Detective Comics # 1029 is going to make him a villain and Batman rogue.
> 
> We all are tired. Because our emotional support characters have been turned into something mentally and emotionally draining.
> 
> So, this is a sort of vent fic written for catharsis.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Kudos and comments are welcome and appreciated


End file.
